My love for a ‘dhal’ shines through ❤️ – Red lentil & spinach dhal ❤️

One of my favourite Indian meals – the humble and underrated dhal. A staple meal of millions of houses in India. You can cook and add anything into a dhal. For me it’s either a fantastic side dish or equally amazing main!

I’ve spent hours in the kitchen cooking dhals using various lentils & beans. Simple cooking at its best offering so many flavours.

In India it’s a household staple due to the cost along with the country having an extremely high percentage of vegetarians again due to affordability.

That not withstanding, cost or not, dhals are just amazing. Dishes I love to create. Yes, at first I struggled with cooking times etc but now, without thinking I can produce dhals like a robot. I love their unique flavours and the fact such a ‘low cost’ meal can fill you up.

Ingredients-

Red lentils 250g
1/2 tin of chopped tomatoes
1/4 tsp of turmeric
750ml cold water
3 tbsp of veg oil
2 tsp of cumin seeds
1/2 tsp of asafoetida
1 tsp of mustard seeds
1 large green chilli – pierced
1/4 tsp of chilli powder
Roughly 250g of spinach
1 tsp of sugar
2 tsp of salt
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Bunch of coriander roughly chopped.

Method –

In a decent sized pan, add the lentils, chopped tomatoes and turmeric. Cover with 750ml of cold water and stir.

Bring this up to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 25 / 30 minutes. Cook until the lentils are tender. Remove from the heat and set aside.

In a large pan, heat the vegetable oil. When it’s hot add the cumin seeds, asafoetida, mustard seeds, pierced green chilli & chilli powder. Fry these for 30 seconds or so flavouring the oil. The kitchen will smell amazing !

Turn the heat down and gentle add the lentils a little at a time.

Once all the lentils are in the flavours oil add your spinach. Spinach does make me laugh, it thinks it’s the hardest leafs out there! Stays big and solid then all of a sudden….crumbles 😂